Saturday, January 21, 2012

My Final Milestone in the online teaching/learning Certification Program

Reflection on the Journey through the teaching/learning certification courses

The online teaching and learning certification course has been interesting, stimulating, and challenging. I decided to seek the certification in online teaching because I had to take a substitution course for a course that I was waive from taking in the doctorate in nursing practice and stumble across online teaching certification. After taking the first course nursing 650 I found the course interesting and I enjoyed it so I decided to continue with it as my minor while pursuing my doctorate in nursing degree. The online certification courses are nursing 650, 651, 652, and 653 in that order.

In nursing 650, I learned about the different learning styles and different teaching styles and how the preference of learners and teachers must align to produce an effective learning environment. I learned about setting boundaries, special consideration and accommodation, the importance of timely communication and constructive feedback, and collaboration and sharing in the online environment. The experience was rewarding, so I considered registering for the second course nursing 651. There was no offering for nursing 651, so I got the approval to register for the third course instead, nursing 652.

In nursing 652, my experience exceeded the expectation in the course. I learned about teaching and learning lessons, giving and receiving feedback, instructional strategies, course considerations and constraints, authentic assessments (formative and summative), content development, student-student, student-instructor, student-content, and student-technology interaction. It was in this course that I developed my course (the nursing process) to use in nursing 653. Following that course, I registered for nursing 651.

In nursing 651, I learned about facilitating online teaching, had the opportunity to teach online for one week, facilitate the course room discussion, and had the opportunity to experience synchronous teaching using Wimba.

Thus, this is the only appropriate and effective teaching and learning experience, I have so far.

My personal feelings about nursing 653

I feel somewhat a sense of fear and some anxiety going into this course. My reason for feeling this way is that I have not had any experience in developing a course except for my learning experience over two terms ago. I am not an instructor by profession, and developing the course more than two terms ago was very challenging and I am not certain about the completeness of the course I developed. I am still not 100% sure that the course I developed is complete or has all of the complete components of a course. I struggled to put the course together, however, the experience was positive, and I learned a lot from the experience.

My belief is that if the course I put together last term is solid or has minor faults, correcting the minor faults and putting it online will not be too difficult so long as I understand how to use the learning management system. However, if I have a lot of work to do on the course development, making the changes, learning the course management system, and uploading the sections to the learning management system may be more complex and challenging.
My plan is to take one-step at a time, ask questions, and follow instructions on what to do in each lesson.

My expectations in the course

My expectation in the course is to have a learning environment where there is opportunity for me to feel like a productive member in the group. I am hoping to achieve all of the learning objectives in the course at the pace where I meet the deadline for the submission of assignments and learn through the experience. I want to achieve all the learning objectives in the course, develop a course module for my course, develop a standard learning module template, create digital content using a variety of learning management system tools, and create assignments and test to assess the learning of students. I am hoping to gain the experience of creating an interactive syllabus using the learning module tool, establish mechanisms to encourage student-instructor interaction, and create an interactive orientation using the learning module tool. All of these experiences will come in this course and therefore, my expectation in the course is to achieve all of the learning objectives.. I expect to be a part of the team, gain team feedback, and subscribe to the various discussion folders so that I can benefit from sharing that occurs. Hence, I will accept constructive feedback, seek understanding from others, and provide feedback to others to enhance the development of their course.

I will spend ample amount of time on the development of each unit in my online course. I will start early in the week to have sufficient time to make changes based on the feedback provided by other learners. Hence, I will join a team to be successful in this course.


Challenges

I see many challenges ahead since I am new to the experience and unfamiliar with the current learning management system “Blackboard”, however, learning is the reason for my presence in the course, and I am willing to take on all the challenges that come with completing this course. The first challenge is learning to navigate the Blackboard to view the assignments and complete the assignments. The second challenge is unfamiliarity with the use of technology to develop a course for online teaching and learning. The third challenge is the amount of time it will require for me to complete the assignments since I will find myself stumbling repeatedly while navigating through the learning management system. The fourth challenge will be for me to take myself out of my current practice mind to a teaching mind in order to develop the course online that will be suitable to a variety of audience with different learning styles. The final challenge will be for me to ensure that my online course is clear to the audience and that they find it appealing, interesting, and stimulating.

Strengths

A solid strength that I have that has help me through my academic experience is the ability to interact with others, communicate timely, and my endurance and stamina to work hard to achieve anything possible that is of interest to me. I enjoy using technology, but sometimes it is difficult to understand technology and use it correctly.

The journey for the next few weeks will be rough and the hope is that the experience brings me satisfaction and success at the end. Developing an Online Course in Blackboard My Experience: The experience I had in building an online course using the Blackboard 9.0 system as the learning management system was one of fear, challenges, uncertainty, at times frustration, but at the end, joyful and rewarding. The course building using technology is the last course in a series of four for a certificate in online teaching at Governors state University. In the previous course, nursing 652, I developed a course titled, the nursing process. In the nursing 653 course, my role was to be the course developer using the blackboard learning management system. The first assignment in the course was to introduce myself to the class, sign a learning agreement, and submit my course and the instructional design worksheets for the course. The requirement in building the course was that there must be all the elements necessary for a course: 1.A course syllabus 2.Orientation 3.Course modules 4.Course Lessons 5.Grading metrics 6.Discussion topics 7.Course Files 8.Assignments 9.Instructor information 10.Formal method of course room communication 11.Instant Messaging for group communication and individual communication to others in the course 12.Wimba live Session development 13.Survey 14.Course Announcement 15.Methods of group interaction Once these elements were developed, the requirements in nursing 653 were to put the course online. There were course expectations from the instructor, timeframe to complete assignments, grading rubric for each week work submission, with feedback mostly through online format, a communication folder for each lesson in the course. The Scary Moments I had several scary moments because it was my first time working with blackboard and it was my first course-using blackboard. I first had to learn the new learning management system and then work a many hours each day to complete the required assignments each week. I was persistent about getting a good grade with each course assignment, which required me to work and focus hard on using the right tool in blackboard to complete the assignments. I sometimes did the assignment three or more times until it was to my acceptance before submitting the final product. I did not work or complete my course work with complete confidence, but each time I received my grade, it motivated me to go on and continue to do a good job. I at times did not know which tool to use to create the specific assignment for the week, but with trial and error and the use of the blackboard instructor manual, I was able to get the assignment done correctly. The Uplifting Moments I enjoy learning, and I know that with learning come challenges and obstacles. In this course, I encountered challenges and obstacles quite often, but as I continue to progress in the course, and spend plenty of time looking at my online course that I build from ground up, it looked beautiful, and that is uplifting. Sure the level of complexity to do the project and the project outcome, just lift my spirit and made me proud to be a part of the group who dared to be successful and travel the long hard journey to achieve the online teaching certification. Conclusion The journey of the online teaching certification course was tough, but stimulating and rewarding. Since taking the certification course, I had the opportunity to teach a hybrid course at the college level, and now that I am finish with the certification course, I will pursue using my talent, knowledge, and education to improve the online teaching environment so that other students can benefit from the rich environment. I accomplished all the course objectives and very satisfied with the effort I put forth and the outcomes I achieved. I setup a course structure in blackboard management system. I created a course menu that supported the course structure and instructional design. I created standard learning module template for use in the there course lessons designed for the nursing process course. I created digital content using a variety of tools from blackboard management system. I established student-student interactions with the discussion board, instant messaging, wimba live session through blackboard. I created assignments and quiz to assess student learning. I established mechanism to encourage student-instructor interaction by providing instructor information for contact, live wimba session, discussion thread for ongoing communication, instant messaging, and phone and email access through blackboard. I created an interactive syllabus using the learning module tool, and I created an interactive orientation using the learning module tool. Bernadette http://bepollard31.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-final-milestone-in-online.html

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